3D City Models and urban information: Current issues and perspectives

Considering sustainable development of cities implies investigating cities in a holistic way taking into account many interrelations between various urban or environmental issues. 3D city models are increasingly used in different cities and countries for an intended wide range of applications beyond mere visualization. Could these 3D City models be used to integrate urban and environmental knowledge? How could they be improved to fulfill such role? We believe that enriching the semantics of current 3D city models, would extend their functionality and usability; therefore, they could serve as integration platforms of the knowledge related to urban and environmental issues allowing a huge and significant improvement of city sustainable management and development. But which elements need to be added to 3D city models? What are the most efficient ways to realize such improvement / enrichment? How to evaluate the usability of these improved 3D city models? These were the questions tackled by the COST Action TU0801 “Semantic enrichment of 3D city models for sustainable urban development”. This book gathers various materials developed all along the four year of the Action and the significant breakthroughs

Tracing Social-Ecologial Relationships: Hāʻena, Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2017

SCADA software-based techniques for the management and improvement of industrial efficiency

SCADA, DCS and BMS systems are prevalent across a range of large industrial and commercial installations. The core research contribution of this thesis was to examine whether suitable, non-time critical, algorithms could be developed for deployment on these style of systems. The objective being to use the existing industry standard low frequency signals, for fault detection and diagnosis, condition based control and performance monitoring. This has indicated the potential for applying academic research in a new fashion across industry to improve operational efficiency. A representative SCADA system was used and the work focussed on the industrial water infrastructure in a deep bed filtration plant, a coal fired power station and a gas turbine research establishment. In the water filtration plant innovative software was developed which diagnosed the location of pipe work blockages. A second programme was developed which passively monitored system variables, giving an indication of filter bed fouling and detecting abnormal system conditions. This functionality was used to provide a robust fault tolerant condition based backwash strategy for the filters. A third programme utilised a novel, threshold based, approach to diagnose the individual severity of combined blockages, allowing condition based back wash to continue, even under extreme abnormal blockage conditions. The second area considered was based upon a cooling process located in a power station. An ideal condenser performance surface was successfully assimilated into SCADA software infrastructure, thus vastly improving on existing manual monitoring approaches and providing operators with real time efficiency information. Associated work at a gas turbine research facility demonstrated the further scope for gathering and displaying efficiency information using SCADA software. The work undertaken proved that a research approach can be encapsulated in non-time critical, low frequency algorithms suitable for application to supervisory systems.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Public health and landfill sites

Landfill management is a complex discipline, requiring very high levels of organisation, and considerable investment. Until the early 1990’s most Irish landfill sites were not managed to modern standards. Illegal landfill sites are, of course, usually not managed at all. Landfills are very active. The traditional idea of ‘put it in the ground and forget about it’ is entirely misleading. There is a lot of chemical and biological activity underground. This produces complex changes in the chemistry of the landfill, and of the emissions from the site. The main emissions of concern are landfill gases and contaminated water (which is known as leachate). Both of these emissions have complex and changing chemical compositions, and both depend critically on what has been put into the landfill. The gases spread mainly through the atmosphere, but also through the soil, while the leachate (the water) spreads through surface waters and the local groundwater. Essentially all unmanaged landfills will discharge large volumes of leachate into the local groundwater. In sites where the waste accepted has been properly regulated, and where no hazardous wastes are present, there is a lot known about the likely composition of this leachate and there is some knowledge of its likely biological and health effects. This is not the case for poorly regulated sites, where the composition of the waste accepted is unknown. It is possible to monitor the emissions from landfills, and to reduce some of the adverse health and environmental effects of these. These emissions, and hence the possible health effects, depend greatly on the content of the landfill, and on the details of the local geology and landscape. There is insufficient evidence to demonstrate a clear link between cancers and exposure to landfill, however, it is noted that there may be an association with adverse birth outcomes such as low birth weight and birth defects. It should be noted, however, that modern landfills, run in strict accordance with standard operation procedures, would have much less impact on the health of residents living in proximity to the site

Move, make, imagine: bringing imaginal, embodied and relational consciousness to change work

Haven is a wholesome girl with big teeth who comes from Maine. She has lived in Spain for years, so she is not so innocent anymore. Perhaps that is why she began to lurk around this inquiry, wending her savvy way into autoethnographical experiments, turning them,sometimes, into fiction. Reality exasperates her, despite her love of the breathing planet and of Fritjoff Capra’s prose, despite her suspicion of his self-indulgence. She is less simple than she seemed when she first knocked on the door and joined the work to be done on doctoral matters. I now see that she began to subvert things, however subtly, early on. I have trouble nailing her down, but then that may be my own shortcoming. Keira, on the other hand, brazenly sauntered into Haven’s and my inquiry scoffing at doctoral work altogether. She is getting on with life, refusing all the while to see that this is serious (isn’t it?). We might not get this right, Haven and I, if Keira keeps living life at such a pace, a siren to everyone, including Haven. She keeps surviving and laughing and breaking down at such a relentless pace. Her wake is full of color and fright. She is both warm and violent. Haven can tell you that writing about how I have changed through writing stories has led us through discoveries of psychoanalytic theory, theatre, autoethnography, feminist theory, poetry, ecology and more. When we had to do work we dove into Performance Studies and what a world of possibilities is there for our intention of creating spaces in which people can learn and flourish. The qualities of such spaces are, for us, centered around embracing deep imagination, promoting bodily involvement and engaging with others. These have become the three pillars of our thesis. Part I of the thesis explores personal writing, including poetry, fiction, autoethnography, journaling and essays to address personal change in an artful manner. I get to know Haven and Keira in the early chapters and they have inquired with me, first into the bigger context of my changing -such as our ecology and philosophical grounding- and then into more granular, methodological possibilities -such as autoethnography, and writing poetry and fiction. Part I includes an initial reflection on extending this work out into the greater world beyond myself and my interactions with Haven and Keira

SCADA software-based techniques for the management and improvement of industrial efficiency

SCADA, DCS and BMS systems are prevalent across a range of large industrial and commercial installations. The core research contribution of this thesis was to examine whether suitable, non-time critical, algorithms could be developed for deployment on these style of systems. The objective being to use the existing industry standard low frequency signals, for fault detection and diagnosis, condition based control and performance monitoring. This has indicated the potential for applying academic research in a new fashion across industry to improve operational efficiency. A representative SCADA system was used and the work focussed on the industrial water infrastructure in a deep bed filtration plant, a coal fired power station and a gas turbine research establishment. In the water filtration plant innovative software was developed which diagnosed the location of pipe work blockages. A second programme was developed which passively monitored system variables, giving an indication of filter bed fouling and detecting abnormal system conditions. This functionality was used to provide a robust fault tolerant condition based backwash strategy for the filters. A third programme utilised a novel, threshold based, approach to diagnose the individual severity of combined blockages, allowing condition based back wash to continue, even under extreme abnormal blockage conditions. The second area considered was based upon a cooling process located in a power station. An ideal condenser performance surface was successfully assimilated into SCADA software infrastructure, thus vastly improving on existing manual monitoring approaches and providing operators with real time efficiency information. Associated work at a gas turbine research facility demonstrated the further scope for gathering and displaying efficiency information using SCADA software. The work undertaken proved that a research approach can be encapsulated in non-time critical, low frequency algorithms suitable for application to supervisory systems

Marshall Space Flight Center Research and Technology Report 2018

Many of NASAs missions would not be possible if it were not for the investments made in research advancements and technology development efforts. The technologies developed at Marshall Space Flight Center contribute to NASAs strategic array of missions through technology development and accomplishments. The scientists, researchers, and technologists of Marshall Space Flight Center who are working these enabling technology efforts are facilitating NASAs ability to fulfill the ambitious goals of innovation, exploration, and discovery

Aeronautical Engineering: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 104

This bibliography lists 532 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System in December 1978